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Current Electricity/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Moby is standing in a room filled with electronic devices and is plugging a power cord into an extension cord. Multiple beeps and humming sounds can be heard. A lamp lights up when Moby plugs in the cord. Tim: You're totally wasting electricity! Moby: Beep. Moby holds up a plug in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other hand. Tim: Ah, I wouldn't do that. Moby plugs a power cord into a socket splitter that has four other power cords plugged into it. Loud grinding and whirring sounds are heard, then the scene flickers once and goes black and silent. Moby: Beep? A couple of lights flash when Moby beeps. Tim: Yeah, I'd say you blew a fuse! A rustling sound can be heard, followed by a thump. Tim: Ow! Give me some light over here. An electrical panel with circuit breakers is illuminated by a moving light. Most of the breaker switches are in the left position. The third breaker switch is in the right position and has a red square on it. A hand reaches out and flips the third switch to the left, and the room lights up. Tim: Dear Tim & Moby, where does electricity come from? From, Juan. There are actually two main kinds of current electricity: direct current and alternating current. Tim and Moby are standing next to each other. A lamp between them is on. Tim is wearing a tee-shirt with an image of a three-pronged electrical socket on it. Tim: Direct current is what you get from things like batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells. Text reads: direct current left-parenthesis | right-parenthesis Sketches of different sized batteries, a fuel cell, and a solar panel array appear as Tim names them. The fuel cell is a roughly cube-shaped device with stripes on it. The solar array is a grid of dark rectangles mounted on a larger frame that is tilted upward slightly. Tim: In direct current, the flow of electricity always goes in one direction. A sketch of an illuminated light bulb is shown. Two black bars each connect to the bulb from the left and the right. In the left black rectangle line of little blue circles is entering from the left side of the video edge and traveling right until it reaches the bulb. Each time a circle reaches the bulb, it disappears from the left rectangle, and a circle appears in the right black rectangle. The circles in the right rectangle continue moving to the right until they leave the edge of the video. Tim: The electricity that we get through our walls, though, is alternating current. Text reads: alternating current left-parenthesis Upper A Upper C right-parenthesis Tim: With A C, the current flows in one direction and then switches to go the other way. The sketch of the illuminated light bulb is shown again. Two black rectangles each connect to the bulb from the left and the right. Initially, a line of little blue circles is entering from the left side of the video edge in the left black rectangle and traveling right until it reaches the bulb. Each time a circle reaches the bulb, it disappears from the left rectangle, and a circle appears in the right black rectangle. The circles in the right rectangle continue moving to the right until they leave the edge of the video. After a few seconds, the bulb dims briefly and the blue circles change direction, entering the video from the right and exiting on the left. The direction changes a few times while the animation displays, each time accompanied by a brief dimming of the bulb as it switches. Tim: It alternates back and forth. The switching happens really quickly—60 times a second!—so we don’t even notice the lights flicker. If we were somehow able to see the lights in slow motion, though . . . Moby presses some buttons on his arm, and the scene appears to distort horizontally. The lamp begins to flicker on and off. Tim, speaking slowly: Mmmooooobyyyy. . . . Moby: Beep? Tim, speaking slowly: Oookaaaayyy, thaaaaat's eeeeenooouuugh. Moby presses some buttons on his arm again and the scene appears to distort horizontally again. The lamp stays on. Tim: Ugh, that gives me a headache. Tim: Electrical energy is made in power plants. Text reads: power plants A cartoon of a power plant is shown. It is a large building with three smoke stacks emitting black clouds of smoke. There are wires coming down from the building to coils on the ground. Other wires are suspended in the air and extend off the side of the screen. Tim: In power plants, generators change mechanical energy into electrical energy to make alternating current. Four large cylindrical devices with spinning components at the top are shown inside a building. Text reads: generators Tim: Mechanical energy can come from a bunch of different sources, like wind, moving water, and burning fossil fuels. The video is divided into four quadrants. One quadrant has three wind turbines spinning. One quadrant shows a dam with water flowing through the bottom and turning a water-wheel. One quadrant shows a lump of coal. One quadrant shows a pool of oil. Tim: Either water or wind or steam from burning oil and coal provide the mechanical energy to turn a turbine. The turbine spins a coil through a magnetic field. This generates an electrical current that changes direction as different parts of the coil pass through the field. A diagram shows how mechanical energy powers a light bulb. Across the top of the diagram is a dark gray bar with flickering bright white streaks in it that give the appearance of motion across the screen. The dark gray bar is labeled mechanical energy. In the middle of the dark gray bar is a series of moving, light gray rectangles that appear to be a top-down view of a turning wheel. The light gray rectangles are labeled turbine. Below the bar of mechanical energy are two large rectangles, each labeled magnet. The magnet on the left has a dark circle with the letter N in it on its right side. The magnet on the right has a dark circle with the letter S on its left side. Three dashed green curves connect the two magnets. A narrow black line comes down from the turbine, passes through the green dashed curves, and connects to a purple rectangle. Also connected to the black line is a black rectangular loop labeled coil. The coil is growing and shrinking horizontally, giving the appearance that it is rotating. The purple rectangle attached to the coil is also connected to a light bulb by a black channel containing moving little blue circles. The black channel is labeled current. It is connected to one side of the rectangle and loops around to connect to the rectangle again on its opposite side. The light bulb sits inside the black channel loop, connected to it at its base. The blue circles all move around the loop in alternating directions. Every cycle of the coil shrinking and growing is accompanied by a dimming of the light bulb and a reversal in direction of the blue circles. Moby: Beep. Tim: Right, that's the alternating current. Text reads: Upper A Upper C Tim: A C goes from the power plant to a transformer, where the voltage is increased so it can travel across long distances and not lose much energy. A network of power lines connecting three different arrays of orange disks is shown. Text reads: transformer Tim: The high-voltage alternating current will run along transmission wires. In some places, transmission wires are high above the ground, while in others, the wires are underground. Power lines run across the scene, held up by transmission line towers. Text reads: transmission wires Tim: Before it enters your home, the high-voltage current will go through another transformer to decrease the voltage to a safe level. A front view of a dark house shows a wire running from off the screen to the house. The windows of the home light up with an audible click, casting shadows on the lawn. Tim: And that's how electricity gets from power plants to our houses! Moby: Beep. Tim: Well, it may seem like electricity is "on tap," but that doesn't mean you should waste it! We all have to do our part to conserve electricity, becaaaaauusse . . . Moby presses some buttons on his arm, and the scene appears to distort horizontally while Tim's voice slows down. Moby walks away. Tim, speaking slowly: Mmmmoooooooobyyyyyy! Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Science Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Engineering & Technology Transcripts